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January 15 - January 18, 2025
Like, in the really good comic books, evil and good are never separated by species or something, but by, like, motivation.”
“It’s not about what people can do, but what they’re willing to do,” Damien said with surety.
Keeping secrets, especially those made to protect you, change the way you see the world. They can make monsters out of shadows if you’re not careful.
“This is so cool,” he couldn’t help but say. A million times he had wished for an adventure. A million times he had read a fantasy book and asked the universe to take him there. He would bargain with it, tell it he knew it would be difficult, that it would be a trial, but that he could take it. Damien had never had good luck in anything. But this? This was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
“It doesn’t work like that. Just ’cause you can hurt someone doesn’t mean you’re more likely to do it. People’ll find ways to hurt others if they want to. Not having super strength and speed isn’t gonna stop them, and having super strength and speed isn’t gonna cause it. Your mom said that being a werewolf isn’t a curse, or a disease. It doesn’t affect your…soul. Your morals. That’s what decides if you hurt someone. So…yeah. No. You’re not that scary,” Damien said.
Sometimes, Damien felt like he didn’t have the energy to get to the next sip of the oasis. That he didn’t have it in him to keep walking in that scorching solitude, the hatred he could feel, inside and out. It peeled his skin away, leaving him calloused and blank.
Hakan had very logically explained that a family of werewolves living in a house without soundproofing was like humans living in a house with glass walls.
Ousía is what we call the essence of something, apart but also attached and essential to its physical form. To be something complete in the physical world, you need both the physical and the Ousía. Neither is more important than the other. One is not higher than the other. They are what makes something what it is. Something on someone’s Ousía is as unique as their physical form. It shares properties with the Ousía of similar things, but no two are the same.
It is knowing and understanding the present and the past that will help you see the future.”
There was something about children and animals liking you that felt especially honest.
Koko said, leaning back on her hands and preening. “My scent is a sword, motherfuckers.”
How could a person be called a hero if they couldn’t even help themselves? he thought bitterly.
If Damien could choose a superpower it would be the ability to disintegrate into the air and join the earth around him.
Calvin had always gotten to him. Everything had always gotten to him, was getting to him, one thing after another, and another, and another, and he was suffocating. Nobody could see, was even bothering to look, and the divide between what he felt and what everybody saw was killing him.
“Damien,” Mia’s voice said through his closed eyes. “Hey, come on. You can open your eyes,” she said softly. Damien blinked them open. Mia’s face was close to his, blocking the rest of the world out. “Hey, kid,” she said, as if she were greeting him from a long trip away. Her thumb stroked under his eye, still damp with tears. His lip trembled. “You’re right, you know. This isn’t fair. It isn’t fair for us to be asking this, for us to be putting it on you to tell us what’s happening. It was us who should have protected you and still…here I am. Asking you to trust me. It’s you and me, Damien,
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That, that anger, that sadness, everything that is going on inside—grab it by the horns and use it. But don’t do it alone. It’s gonna be step by step,
“No worries. What’s a little heart attack when you’re fourteen?” Damien joked, then winced as it fell flat, a reminder of the day’s events.
“No, just, no, please. It’s not your fault, God, it’s not—I shouldn’t even be asking that of you, I shouldn’t but I just—please. I-I…Damien,” he stuttered, and Damien had never seen Hakan even remotely like that. He clutched at him as Koko pressed closer to Damien, her arms solid and grounding around him.
There was rain in the horizon that foretold good tidings. A softening of the earth.
“But pack…pack is like this flower. Or like the earth, like the forest. It’s meant to grow as much as it is nurtured, to give what it is given, to flourish. At least, that’s how the Salgado pack works. I know they can be intimidating, but they return tenfold whatever they are given.”
Damien had learnt there was a large disparity between the two. Just because he was invited into someone’s home didn’t mean he had the quality of family, maintained by the omnipresent fact that he could be discarded at a moment’s notice.
You are the force of the raging river, the might of a mountain, the strength of a tree. You do not expect more or less from them than what they are. Their existence is enough. So is yours.
She talked about the importance of balance. Of understanding the true value of things and repaying in kind.
She talked about how they were each part of something bigger. How they were equal with the world. How the problems of man blinded people from seeing what they were. The simplicity of their existence. The freedom of being if you lived in harmony with what gave you life.
Sometimes, he felt like life had weathered him into a shape beyond his years. Others, it was like he was stuck at ten years old, with fears that belonged to another age.
“Well…you got caught smoking. Not even that—caught near someone who was smoking. Like…I mean, I get that you don’t like getting into trouble.” “You make me sound like a square.” “Okay, grandpa.”
Even if Hakan didn’t return his feelings, it felt good to love somebody. To have someone in his life good enough to warrant that.
“And I love vagina,” Koko said. Damien looked at her. “Yeah, I knew that.” “Yeah, I know. I just like saying it once a day.”
“I only get wet for our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” she said, pressing her palms together. Gonzalo covered his face with his hands as Koko and Damien laughed.
Oliveeeee lol
“This is your home. It will always be your home. It will always be open to you, whether you believe you deserve it or not. As Kephalē, that is my decision to make. So, go out into the world. But come back.”
“I’d kill them,” Hakan said softly. His fists clenched on his knees. “I’d fucking kill them.”
“I get it. Thank you for the offer of murder.”
“Damien of the Salgado pack…there is something clouding your sight. To maintain balance in the world, in your life, you must know your true value. Not the value you feel. The value that is. And accept nothing less but something of equal value from others. If you consistently accept less than what you are from others, you will fool yourself into believing you are less. Your life will not find balance that way.”
Everything was flayed open by Hakan’s presence. At its core, that was love. It was an automatic lowering of defences, whether you wanted it or not.
“Sometimes we refuse to acknowledge the validity of our distress and difficulty so much that when we finally do, it hurts. But it’s a good kind of pain, Damien. It’s the pain of healing.”
Everybody has those negative thoughts. Having them isn’t the issue. We just want to get to a point where your own voice is louder than the rest, some—hopefully most—of the time.
“We all need it. Damien, we all need to be shown with certainty where we belong. We all need to see commitment and not just suggestion. It was not logic that lead me to my actions. It was fear.”
Damien knew this wasn’t the end of the road. If there was one thing he knew, it was that nothing was ever easy. But, God, could it be good.
